Why digital marketers love minimalist designs

Broadly speaking, graphic design is “the art or skill of combining text and pictures in advertisements, magazines, or books.” A good design can emphasize a message and lend persuasive power to it. And since marketing is all about promoting products and services, these two disciplines are, naturally, closely related.

Lately, design trends—whether for websites, digital marketing content, and both online and traditional advertising materials—veer toward clean and simple styles that are no less eye-catching and dynamic. This style is called minimalism.

While it isn’t a new concept, most brands are still hesitant about adopting minimalism for fear that their ads and marketing materials may pale in comparison with flashier ones.

What are minimalist designs?

Minimalism in design began in the 1920s in the field of architecture. The trend then spilled over into painting, fashion, and music.

Identified as graphic design at its most basic form, the purpose of minimalist styles is to make content the focal point. Following this principle, only necessary elements that serve important functions are included in the visual material.

Just like other design types, minimalist layouts incorporate various elements such as color, space, and typography. Minimalists, however, consider this one question when working on a project: how much can be stripped away from a material without losing the work’s essential purpose and identity?

Minimalism in the digital realm

Many publishers, web designers, and graphic artists now use this style for digital marketing.

In this area, however, there’s a need for designers to consider how their work interacts with digital features and purposes. For instance, they must tailor their creations to the channel or platform where they’ll be distributed. If an image is intended for mobile viewing, such as via social apps like Facebook and Instagram, designers must consider the screen and image size they need to work with.

Other things to take into account are users’ attention span, browsing habits, and design preferences.

Why minimalism?

Minimalism is taking over many digital platforms because it allows content to stand out. This lets brands ensure that their target audience can immediately understand their marketing messages.

Here are the other benefits of a minimalist design:

• It works well in digital formats, since you need to fit only a few elements into a limited frame size.
• Also because of this, minimalist images load faster across devices.
• It’s a timeless style.
• You don’t have to worry about clutter.
• When done right, it can be eye-catching and visually pleasing.